


Fractals of the Eye

by spicedrobot



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Mention of Top Surgery Scars, Mild sensory deprivation, Oral Sex, Spiral Avatar Gerard Keay, Spiral related shenanigans, Trans Male Character, feel free to ask for more tags, mild jealousy, scary eye tattoos, vague spoilers for michael and gerard in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26179504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedrobot/pseuds/spicedrobot
Summary: Gerry knows he shouldn’t trust the thing that crawls through the yellow door. Easier said than done.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 9
Kudos: 130





	Fractals of the Eye

**Author's Note:**

> For an anon on tumblr: hewwo u said ud b willing to do fic requests if u hav energy,,, id love to see ur take on trans gerry n michael
> 
> Thanks for waiting! orz

Gerry knows he shouldn’t trust the thing that crawls through the yellow door. Tall and twisted, too long limbs and a too wide smile with too many teeth. Sometimes the thing was handsome, almost human. Sometimes it was impossible to perceive, oscillating colors and shapes and sounds, vibrations behind his eyes and unease in his bones, head carved out and aching like the episodes he used to get when he ran with Gertrude. 

Gerry doesn't want to trust the thing that crawls through the yellow door. He’s sick and alone—consciousness ebbing for what could be the final time—when it appears. It opens with its slow, eerie creaking, a strange, almost comfort among the beeps and whirs of the machinery hooked into him. He should be afraid, but mostly, he’s tired. The thing that had always smiled is not smiling. Its mouth is a long, long line, its eyes muted, monochrome, motionless. 

It doesn’t laugh. It doesn’t speak in the weird, cryptic way that always reminded Gerry of his childhood lessons. He adamantly doesn’t think of his mum as the creature looms over him.

Three words. No reverberation, no teasing. It makes Gerry cold.

“Not this time.”

Then its huge, bone-heavy fingers trace the spot just above his left eye and press through his skin. Fracturing pain, a kaleidoscope of colors he’s never seen before and would never see again, memories and death and a tall, pale-haired man in a bright cardigan, laughter like bubbles and carnival glass. 

The doctors can’t explain his recovery, but Gerry doesn’t need them to. He can feel it. Changed. Not better, but different. He slips out of the hospital at the first opportunity and checks into a run down motel. He plans his next move while he drinks lukewarm lobby coffee. He’s not hungry. He wonders if he ever will be again.

Gerry knows he cannot trust the thing that crawls through the yellow door.

But it’s the only thing that’s ever saved his life.

-

“You’ve taken to Es Mentiras well.”

Gerry hadn’t heard the door open. The sound is too familiar, background noise like the twisting fractals that always dance at his vision’s periphery, waiting, longing to be seen. At least they don’t hurt his head anymore. A small comfort, knowing their impossibility and following their paths regardless. 

The scratch of his pen halts as waves of pale hair curtain around his shoulders.

“You sound disappointed,” Gerry says.

Michael giggles above him, airy and wild. A finger dips into his vision and traces one of the thousands of lines carved into the paper on his desk. 

It had been hard once, finding the deserving. Easier now that he’s made a name for himself among the same posh inner circles that his mum always hated. There’s a grim, ironic pleasure in being sought after, in finding purpose as his humanity drains away. Pop up galleries all across Europe, never in the same place, never for more than a few hours. No work of art is the same, each a curse of fractals in the shape of eyes, each line a different color, a different texture from a single, unremarkable ballpoint pen. All faced the same fate: inevitable destruction at the hand of their buyers, torn, burned, and once, meticulously eaten. Gerry’s particularly proud of that. No archive. No unwitting casualties. The ability to locate the marked and a pool of money to help them.

“I had been hoping you would struggle a bit more,” Michael sighs, soft and close, against his temple. “And come to me for help.” Fingers slide beneath the low bun of now perfectly ink black hair, not quite cupping the nape of Gerry’s neck. His hands are heavy, too smooth, too warm. “But our dear Artist has a gift that he puts to good use.”

“ _Would_ you have helped?”

“Of course. If I felt like it,” Michael hums. “If you made it worth my time.”

“See, this is exactly why I didn’t.” 

He doesn’t shift away as Michael draws a huge, heavy hand over his knuckles. The dark eyes inked into his skin stare back with twisting, multicolored pupils. 

“So much better than those boring eyes.” The brush of hot lips against the shell of his ear, a hint of too long, too sharp teeth. “Did the others change similarly?” 

“Pretty shite pick up line. You haven’t been a monster _that_ long, Michael.”

Michael giggles again, and something feels off, like the room’s foundations aren’t quite balanced, like he can’t clear his vision no matter how many times he blinks. The delicious trill of unease that feeds whatever creature he could arrogantly call a god courses through him. His god. Their god. 

“What would you prefer, Mr. Keay? Shall I serenade you? Opine your beauty, how wonderfully _twisted_ you’ve become?” Michael’s nose brushes against his jawline, and Gerry tips his head to the side instinctually, wondering when the motion had become such. “It’s true, you know.”

And even hearing it in jest, Gerry suppresses a shiver. Always such a fool for it, a kind word. Just a little appreciation thrown his way.

“What is?”

“That you are beautiful.” 

“Getting better, but still a bit stale.” 

“Hm. Michael was never much with words.” 

Michael’s fingers are at once small and short, and they grab his hair and pull. Gerry growls into the lips flattened against his own. There’s a hint of teeth, a flash of copper that burns neon and begins to taste like sour candy. Too much sweetness used to give him headaches. Gerry opens his mouth, eager, pressing in even as he’s held in place. His hair twists and curls around Michael’s grip, and there it is, Michael’s laughter vibrating against his teeth. Gerry bites his tongue, laps against it, and his laughter goes breathy and low. Michael’s face is barely knowable when Gerry pulls back for air he doesn’t need. A habit. He wonders how long it will take for him to lose that too.

Gerry watches Michael reform and distort. It reminds him of a camera lens adjusting but never quite falling into focus. He licks his lips. They taste like blue raspberry.

“Are you going to finish what you started?”

“Oh, can I?” Michael drawls. His eyes bifurcate, red and cyan interlaced. Then his attention snaps to him.

It’s not that Michael moves quickly, though Gerry knows he can. It’s that he disappears and reappears as his door does, unquestionably impossible and unnerving. His vision upturns, all ceiling and Michael’s smiling face. Gerry makes a sound of annoyance. He can feel his pen sticking into his side, his work most likely crumpled beneath him.

Another kiss, sour sweetness and heat, sets his jaw tingling. Teeth, blunt but exceedingly sharp, pluck down his neck, map his pulse, always sluggish when it remembers to exist at all. It doesn’t stop Gerry from wanting, doesn’t stop a needy inhalation as he fists his hands into the endless streams of Michael’s hair. This, at least, is familiar. The rush, the pinpricks of bright, sparking fear, indelibly tangled with things that no rational-minded person should want. The shame of it is old now, less important. Easier.

A groping hand between his thighs, stifling against the layer of leather and cotton, but his hips cant into the touch.

“Here? Can we at least move to the bed?”

“Ah, so you are romantic.”

“Shut it.”

The bed’s only a few feet away, but it’s theatrical process getting there. Long limbs, laughter, beleaguered sighs, stroking and kissing and unsteady footing. Gerry falls to the bed with an _oof_ , Michael not quite following, hands splayed against his thighs, kneeling at the edge of the mattress. 

“Old habits die hard, I suppose,” Michael purrs, easing Gerry’s pants down to mid thigh. 

“What do you mean?”

“You’re staring. All of them are.” 

Gerry forces himself to focus on his words instead of the hot breath against his inner thigh. He clenches his hands instinctively, knowing those spiraled pupils follow Michael’s every move, even the hidden ones concealed beneath. They see as he sees, a technicolor of unease and endless hunger. 

“The Eye yet has its claws in you,” he breathes as Michael bites along his thigh, leaving marks that don’t look like anything a human could make. It stirs something in him, something that was easy enough to ignore before the change. He slides his fingers into Michael’s hair the moment the pale man presses his mouth to his cock.

Gerry bites the inside of his cheek, stifling a shocked moan. Michael’s tongue is a strange pressure, too heavy and feather light, too long and confusing like the rest of him. His underwear quickly dampens beneath that eager mouth, sucked and stroked with lips and tongue, each press slick and teasing.

“Even before, we had so much in common.” 

He doesn’t know how Michael is talking with his face flush and shifting against him. His mind buzzes uselessly with the quandary, breath stolen, body throbbing and jerking into each flick of his tongue.

“Marked by fear. Drawn by knowledge. Abandoned by those we cared for.”

Lines of saliva shine between Michael’s lips and Gerry’s body, gossamer like an oil slick. The gaze that meets his own is icy blue for a moment, burning like an afterimage. 

There’s an untouchable weight to it, deeply, irrevocably tangled in Gerry’s own, ancient hurts. They hadn’t disappeared; they had simply changed. How long had Michael suffered with becoming something else, completely and utterly alone? The answer beckons like a wave against his skull. Gerry ignores it and pulls Michael closer. 

Michael slides up his body, sleek as a shadow but never as silent, giggling madly as Gerry tugs off his own clothes. Michael’s naked in an instant, slices of skin in waves of cornsilk. Gerry rolls his eyes. Of course it’s deceit alone that clothes him when he wants to appear decent. With a body that could look like anything, that has probably looked like _everything_ , this is as close to Michael’s human form as he’s ever seen it. Terribly long and lean, the gentlest crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes, smile lines, well worn and striking. Sharp collarbones, old, faded scars beneath his chest, coarse, thick curls trailing down his belly. Gerry palms down his stomach, slipping fingers between Michael’s thighs, strangely greedy, wanting Michael to feel the same, needy ache winding through him. Michael purrs in his ear, the sound low and hungry and pleased.

Gerry watches Michael’s face, so close, colors and shapes near blinding, shifting with each leisurely snap of the creature’s hips against his hand. Mesmerizing like his drawings, each an endless path he could trace forever. Terrifying. Beautiful.

Pressure, darkness. Michael’s hand smothering his face, only his mouth unobstructed, free to utter a startled, strangled sound. 

“Always staring, getting distracted,” Michael singsongs breathlessly. He presses Gerry flat into the mattress, pins his damp, shifting hand against his side. “I don’t want to share this one, Ceaseless Watcher.”

Michael’s cock catches against his in a slow, slick slide, and Gerry moans, shocked and loud. He could still see, feels his inked eyes prickling and nosy and Knowing, but the sensations jolting through him keep him lost. Unable to concentrate, each unknown, unseen touch igniting his nerves and working pathetic whines from his throat. 

“There we are...” Michael says, softer, airer, more affected than the steady drag of his body suggests. “I would love to have you like this in my hallways...let your eyes feast until they cannot stand another moment of seeing.” Gerry can hear his smile. “Force a little madness upon that pesky little voyeur.” His hips shift quicker, pumping, catching. Michael’s teeth against his throat, marking his pulse, leaving ugly, impossible marks.

Gerry wraps his legs around his waist, tugging him closer, forcing him faster. Pale curls twist around his calves and thighs, clenching possessively, pinning him right where he wants him.

“What do you say, Gerry?”

His name, so casual, so breathlessly murmured. Gerry groans, close-mouthed, annoyed, endeared. He grinds into each press, but Michael’s hair flattens, tightens like limbs around him. So much like the skittering of spiders in the dark. Gerry’s stomach twists, fear potent on both their tongues.

“N-not a chance…” he bites out.

Michael moans, delighted, hips slowing to a smooth, even rocking. For a moment, Gerry thinks he’ll stop, tease the answer he wants from him, until he’s begging to see, to experience the hallways in their endless, twisting madness.

“Ah, stubborn.”

Gerry winces at the sudden light, the sudden pressure at his throat, squeezing, the quickening, brutal press of their bodies together, wet and loud. He doesn’t need to breathe, but still the fear and exhilaration surge to the surface, his mouth round with a choked off, silent yell. Colors burst inside of his mind, outside of his mind, Michael humming pleasantly all the while, lower lip sucked between his teeth. Gerry feels boneless, weightless, and perhaps he is, before his body remembers what shape he prefers to be.

“I won’t hurt you, you know,” Michael says as Gerry remembers himself. It is soft, whispered into his shoulder. Perhaps the press of his lips is a kiss. “You’re much too interesting.”

Gerry laughs, voice rough and ruined. He feels Michael smile against his skin.

“Consider me wooed,” he replies, deadpan.

Their overlapping hair bleeds into each other, iridescence shining within the black and pale strands. He traces his fingers along Michael’s back as he closes his eyes, tucking himself into Gerry’s side. Michael wouldn’t sleep, neither of them do, but it feels right, resting against each other. The anxiety of whatever they are fades into the noise of things that don’t exist and never have existed.

Gerry shouldn’t trust the thing that crawls through the yellow door. 

But he does anyway. 


End file.
